Fix Masonic

FixMasonic has come a long way in a short year. Here is some of what we’ve accomplished with a couple of months left to go:

• Drafted a traffic calming petition which currently has hundreds of signatures from local residents, thanks to the efforts of people committed to this movement. This is key to getting action at MTA and City Hall.

• Spread the word at local neighborhood meetings including HANC (with Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi in attendence) and NOPNA.

• Created San Francisco’s westernmost parking space park at Masonic and Fulton for PARKing Day 2007, further spreading the word about change on Masonic Avenue.

• Enlisted the aid of professional urban planners to lend creativity to this project so that in 2008 we can evolve from recognizing a problem to proposing some solutions.

Many other projects are underway; stay tuned.

The next Fix Masonic meeting takes place April 2 at 6:30 at Central Coffee at the corner of Hayes and Central. This one will be in conjunction with SF Bike Coalition; we’ll take a look at where we are in the overall process of transforming the corridor, and focus on:

• getting the word out to the neighborhood
• next steps with MTA
• where traffic calming meets performance art (that’s right!)

We’ll also hear your latest ideas. Please join us. To RSVP or ask questions about the meeting, email.

It’s a common perception about Masonic Avenue that anything you do to change it is going to make automobile traffic worse. Because it’s a major thoroughfare, it has no capacity to spare. But is that true?

Masonic is perceived as a six-lane roadway, but it’s worth keeping in mind that two of those six lanes only operate for two hours a day between Grove and O’Farrell. In other words, Masonic is never more than a five-lane roadway, and for 22 hours a day, it’s a four lane road. And yet it is among the most chaotic and stressful four lane roads in the city.

Again, the perception is that the stress is due to congestion, but actually observing traffic on the street (as one can easily do if, like me, one has a front window that looks at the street) shows that traffic is only slowed by congestion for short periods of the day – less than an hour in the northerly direction for the morning commute (peaking around 8:45) and periodically in the afternoon (from about 3 to 6) southbound.

The rest of the time, the rule is not congestion, but speeding. The next time you drive up or down Masonic, match the speed of the other cars and see if you’re traveling 30 miles an hour, the posted speed limit. You’ll find many cars traveling closer to 40, and the occasional aggressive driver using the curb lane to pass at even higher speeds.

Here is where most San Franciscans shrug, and rightly so. What can you really do to enforce speed limits in this town? SFPD largely ignores it even when a neighborhood unites to complain about it (contrast this with my hometown of Menlo Park, where all a resident had to do was complain and a police officer would come sit in their driveway with a radar gun). SFPD clearly has better things to do, and there’s no sense in arguing with that.
Instead, you have to resort to other means, and here are a few:

• Traffic calming – on smaller streets, traffic calming has traditionally meant speed bumps and other such annoyances that are, in any case, inappropriate for Masonic. Instead, subtler means need to be employed to make cars naturally travel at speeds closer to the speed limit. A green median, for example, would change Masonic from a wide-open hardscape with trees along the sides to a bucolic boulevard.

Even subtler, cheaper and more creative means to get drivers to slow down have been tried successfully: for example, this account of a street mural in Cambridge. A traffic calming plan for Masonic requires deep understanding and creativity of road engineering and psychology, and the right ideas could come from anyone, not just a city planner.

• SFgo – San Francisco is quietly implementing a new traffic management system that is centered around “signals that respond to the actual volume of traffic on a roadway,” with the goal both of improving traffic flow and reducing speeding. Masonic is a prime candidate for this system.

• Signal cameras. Cameras that ticket red-light runners, such as have been employed in other areas of town, would no doubt make a difference. Red light infractions are rife on Masonic because it’s a two-way street surrounded by timed one-ways; drivers build up momentum on Pine, or Oak, and want to keep cruising through signals. Nobody likes being ticketed, but the signals on Masonic are not being respected and perhaps forceful means are necessary.

The entire Fix Masonic project came about when Masonic Avenue was nominated by popular support as one of the Top 20 campaigns for the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. There was utter unanimity that Masonic is a miserable place to ride; yet because of the way the Lone Mountain and Anza Vista neighborhoods are configured, there is no detour even for a crafty cyclist.

The nearest through streets from the Haight to Geary and beyond are Stanyan to the west and Divisadero to the east; each is half a mile away.

To be utterly specific: riding a bicycle north from Haight Street,, say to Trader Joe’s or the Presidio, you can choose a trip up quiet Central Avenue, one block to the east of Masonic, until you reach a steep climb at Golden Gate and a dead-end at Turk; at that point, to continue northward to Geary/Presidio and beyond there is no choice, which is why you find cyclists on the ultra-wide Masonic Avenue sidewalk, simply trying not to get creamed.

Riding south (downhill) is productive and fun for a more experienced and aggressive urban rider willing to take the lane. This practice is encouraged with “Bicycles Allowed Use of Full Lane” reminders up and down the avenue, but it doesn’t pass a personal acid-test: this writer wouldn’t try it with kids in the bicycle trailer. One inopportune angry speeder or opening door and… one shudders to think.

In any case, the very raison d’etre of the Bike Coalition is to obviate “experienced and aggressive” cycling in favor of good planning that lets bicycles coexist peacefully with cars. In most areas of San Francisco, a parent with a bicycle trailer can (believe it or not) choose a safe itinerary. Masonic needs to live up to that standard, because there is no alternate route.

So the question is, how will bicycles, pedestrians and cars all travel conflict-free along this corridor?